The Taste of Silence
Word Count: 705
Prompts: Silence - No One's Leaving - Mother's Kitchen
Outside, it was raining.
There was no escape out of this hell. There was no acceptable excuse to disappear, because it was raining. She would know, like she always did when I would walk out that door just to get away.
...
Mother's kitchen never was very welcoming.
There were never homemade meals served in the area where families supposedly get together to enjoy each other's company and the warm food provided. She never cooked; she felt she didn't need to. I have never even tasted fresh bread and butter.
...
I sat at the table, leaning back in my chair and watching the rain fall outside the window. I listened to her gripe about my father, and me, and about the world in general.
She pulled hard, stale bread from the cabinet. Tonight's dinner, apparently.
...
My body ached to run. To walk out that door and never return.
The day to do so was drawing near. I could feel it in the way that my skin twitched and how my stomach twisted and how my legs burned to run for miles.
...
I had always been the kid to never make it into any circle. Most other kids avoided me of their mother's warnings about my mother, and the adults would always ignore me as they walked by, like they did to all trash in the street.
I couldn't explain the feelings I'd get at times like these, except that it was an oozing feeling, something that felt sticky to the touch and revoltingly sweet in the mouth
It was a feeling that demanded admittance, no matter how unwanted it was.
I stared at my mother's back, who continued to voice her frustrations, which was giving me a headache that throbbed behind the eyes.
...
I had dreams of running away and finding a different path of fate. Didn't everyone have a choice as to how they wanted their life to go? I wanted mine to be bright and vivacious, not the dirty and dismal that I had now.
But somehow, my dreams of running never made it past the front door. The door with its worn out knob and grey wood, which looked like it would flake apart underneath a caress.
The door, which was so weak and fragile, held my soul to this house and to her like a caught butterfly, always easily broken and crumbled.
...
Something cold touched my cheek, and I brushed it off with the back of my hand.
But it had only been water from the leaking roof. The drops left my hand damp and mixed with the brown dirt that resided on the skin.
Water could be agitated and distorted with the slightest touch. Water could be tainted and altered, but it was always still the same entity, water.
...
Music. That was something I could do. Something that I could do well. I could make music from the artificial, man-made instruments.
I could manipulate anything I wanted from the instruments. They always obeyed what I commanded them to sing, and they never questioned the reason of the tone of the melody they were instructed to play.
Instruments listened and did what I told them to, and I enjoyed that miniscule authority.
...
"Jack," The woman said, bringing me back to the surface of my endless dwellings. "Are you listening to what I am saying?"
I had quit listening to her years ago.
When I said nothing, it appeared that she did not care. Besides, I was just as useless as 'that man'.
That man who just might hold the key to the different path. Someone that held silk and cleanliness, music and laughter, friendship and smiles…
"If he didn't come back for me, he won't ever come back for you," she told me smugly. She had scorn lacing her voice and hate evident on her face.
...
I knew better than to argue. I had argued too much. It was better to keep quiet and watch. To listen and wait until the truth could no longer be contained, and then when it is spoken, there is nothing like the delicious aroma of the words as they dropped from the mouth.
And in that aspect, silence had never tasted so good to the tongue.